Clinton Sparks' 30 Favorite Mixtapes

Clinton Sparks: “Who else could do it better than Mr. Cee? He has demos and freestyles from his basement with Biggie. If you're a Biggie Smalls fan—which if you're into hip hop, who's not?—that's definitely the standard CD to have for Biggie.”

Clinton Sparks: “The original and the sequel were both iconic, old-school '80s tapes. The sound effects are super dope the way they incorporated Nintendo games and cartoons and movies from that genre. It really brought you into the '80s. That wasn't just something to listen to; it was an experience. [I picked both because] I see it as a season instead of an episode.”

Clinton Sparks: “That was really a novel concept at the time. It was groundbreaking. It really hasn't come close to being duplicated since, and I know a bunch of people try to do stuff like that. But that's the standard on top of everyone's mixtape list. That's the epitome of a freestyle emcee mixtape.”

Clinton Sparks: “Yeah that's another classic. It's considered Wop's best tape ever. Obviously you have the Tony Touch tape with the BS brothers, but it's just really highly thought of as one of the top mixtapes. I was a kid at the time and I can still remember being a kid listening to that mixtape and being excited about it. So that's why it kind of resonates with me.”

Clinton Sparks: “50 came in and owned the mixtape world when he first started dropping. Between 50 and Dipset they're the ones that started turning mixtapes into street albums. It's so hard to pick one of those, so again I picked it as a season. They really were all back to back and just kept slamming you—and it's all one team.”

Clinton Sparks: “Z-Trip mixes are always inventive, mad genre overlapping. This one is a later concert that he did on a limited basis. He remixed Talib Kweli's 'Get By' with some Nina Simone piano and the hand claps were all live. I'm always a fan of creative people who do things that the average person wouldn't think of doing.”

Clinton Sparks: “This was an official mixtape from Kanye and the Heavy Hitters, released right after Kanye was in that car accident. The back cover was the picture of Kanye from his hospital bed looking like he got beat up by ten dudes.

“The mixtape featured mostly production, cause at that point he was only an aspiring rapper, but it also featured a snippet of 'Jesus Walks.' It was like, 'Oh shit!' It also had 'Through the Wire,' where he was rapping through a wired jaw. That's when you could tell this is a motivated dude who wasn't going to let anything get in the way of his goals.”

Clinton Sparks: “That was the first mixtape from Game and he had awesome freestyles on there. That's the tape that got him discovered. It's a rare joint. Back when Game was spitting bars on bars with his heavy, gruff voice. It was before all the stuff a lot of people know Game for now. This is just straight emceeing and spitting bars.”

Clinton Sparks: “It was probably the epitome of all the Biggie mixtapes. There have been so many countless mixtapes swiping Biggie vocals, remixing them, and making new verses of Biggie songs. We probably can't even name them all. But that was one of the defining ones. It was the best, most well-put-together Biggie mixtape.

“Then the Tupac was really awesome too and they added Green Lantern who is, in my opinion, one of the best mixtape DJs ever. It had a lot of media hype and a lot of attention. It was one of those standard mixtapes at the time, like you had to have that mixtape.”

Clinton Sparks: “This is the first Dipset tape, but it was also the springboard for the street album format with mixtapes. Independent street sales are crazy. Those dudes were doing it in style with their mixtape and selling it like it was an album. That was a huge movement, especially in the hood.”

Clinton Sparks: “That was the mixtape that put everything in motion for Jeezy. It really led the trapping movement. And it led the snowman phenomenon which eventually led to his next mixtape—the also colossal Can't Ban the Snowman, which took its name from an incident where Jeezy's snowman tees got banned from schools in the South. Jeezy came out and created a way, [just like] T.I. or Dipset or Lil Wayne. So it was like, 'It's Jeezy time.'”

Clinton Sparks: That was when T.I. and Flip were really going at it for the title of King of the South. Tip was in jail and Flip was calling himself the king at his shows. T.I. found out and threw diss tracks out. He had the freestlye “99 Problems (Lil Flip Ain't One)' and the conversation between T.I. and Scarface. The diss of Lil Flip really put T.I. on the map outside of Atlanta. T.I. dropped this mixtape and never looked back.”

Clinton Sparks: “That's one of those legends mixtapes put out by Tape Kingz to celebrate their 15 years in the game. They've got four to six tracks from each DJ, from Green Lantern, Dirty Harry, Pudgy P. I think Pudgy P stole the spotlight. That was another kind of classic. If you were a big mixtape fan, that was a must-have.”

Clinton Sparks: “The way Green chopped up 'The Champ is Here' [sample from the movie, Ali] and made a song out of it was dope. I picked a lot of Green Lantern CDs because I really like his creativity. Who would think of [sampling dialogue and making a hook] like that? Nobody.

“That was a massive tape for Jadakiss. They took over New York when they dropped that CD. That was just massive and it was an awesome combination between Green Lantern and Jadakiss.”

Clinton Sparks: “It has all OutKast remixes. DJ Jamad does the first disk, hip-hop soul remixes. Floyd does the second disk, and it's hip-hop jazz beats. The [innovation] made me a fan. And who doesn't like OutKast?”

Clinton Sparks: “That's another hall of fame mixtape. It had incredible hype: There was a lawsuit and MTV even covered it. But the remixes worked. For such an unlikely paring it actually sounded pretty amazing. That was the mixtape that launched Danger Mouse's career, who then went on to start a Grammy-Award-winning band called Gnarls Barkley.”

Clinton Sparks: “That got a lot of accolades and recognition, even Rolling Stone picked it as one of the Top 50 albums of the year and it was a mixtape. It was probably one of the best you'd ever hear from the Clipse and then they added the Re-Up Gang. From the standpoint of marketing, promoting, and advertising to the cover and the beat selection, it was on point—from beginning to end.

“Re-Up was in charge of Vol. 1. and it didn't really make any noise. So I said, 'Guys, let me be in charge of Vol. 2. I'm telling you, I know what I'm doing.' I had the cover designed. Me and my team got behind it and promoted it. I basically just gave input on this is what we should do.

“[With Vol. 1] it was more like, 'This is what we want to do, can you just put your stamp on it?' I was like, 'Yeah but I think you should do this, this, and this.' They were like, 'Naw, we're happy where we are at with it.'

“Then I said, 'Guys, let me take control of the second one.' The popularity of it was indicative of how I felt it was going to be. That's why I'm really proud of the recognition and accolades that we got for it.”

Clinton Sparks: "It was awesome because I was producing everything on there, so it was like an album. I had like 20 tracks on there and it also introduced a couple artists from overseas. It was me going all out and spending a lot of time with a lot of original production and being more than just a DJ."

Clinton Sparks: “Obviously, I'm a fan of Green Lantern and the work he puts into his CDs. A lot of people used to [confuse] us, like me and him were the same dude, because we had the same type of music, same style, and we both kind of came out around the same time. But we were from two different places and didn't even know each other.

“This was cool because this was [during] the Eminem and 50 Cent war against Ja Rule and Benzino and it escalated on that with 'Hail Mary' and 'Bump Heads.' So it was when everyone was paying attention to what was going on with that back and forth, that Invasion had a lot of stuff on there.”

Clinton Sparks: “They were going on tour and they reached out and said, 'Yo, we want you to do a mixtape that we can give away on the tour.' That had the 'Fubba U Cubba Cubba' freestyle from Eminem. To do a mixtape with someone of that magnitude at the pinnacle of their career was awesome.”

Clinton Sparks: "That goes without saying. That was the epitome of Lil Wayne. That's just a monster. Anyone that listens to mixtapes has Dedication 2. It was like a tie between that and No Ceilings for me.”

Clinton Sparks: “It was awesome to me because it was an old-school cat showing that he can still do it, rocking to new beats and classic beats. I think that was put together really well. I'm a fan of C.L. Smooth and I like how J. Period hooked up with him and just had him rocking over all new beats.”

Clinton Sparks: “I put that on there because those were all produced by Green Lantern. I was the first DJ to produce my entire mixtape. It was all original production with other people on them. I started calling them mini-albums. So the reason I'm a fan of Green is because he does a lot of that stuff too.

"There was a song on there called 'Shotgun Season' with Fat Joe and Styles. Every time I hear it, I just get chills because it was so awesome the way he put it together. Then he also had that 'Ice Cream Man' with Pharrell and that Eddie Murphy clip. That was awesome. Cory Gunz was on there too and that was a while ago, before Cory Gunz was getting the shine that he gets now.”

Clinton Sparks: “This was another pairing that just made sense. You have a huge band like Coldplay and a huge artist like Jay-Z. It got major press, and it even got nods from Hov and from Coldplay themselves. So it definitely stacked up to its accolades and its recognition. For Chris Martin from Coldplay to hear it and say. 'Yo, this is awesome,' that's a pretty big deal for a mixtape DJ.”

Clinton Sparks: "I had to throw in the man DJ AM in there. DJ AM definitely opened up the doors for a lot of DJs to start doing mashups and definitely laid a path for a lot of DJs to do what they do. I'm a big fan of Travis Barker too. And that was AM's last mixtape."

Clinton Sparks: “Do I really need to say anything for that? Drake's been the newest, biggest deal when it comes to mixtapes, and everyone is waiting for him to put out an album. His buzz is so crazy. This was just a massive 'I'm here' moment for a new artist. That guy is super talented.”

Clinton Sparks: “I know he has been around for a while, but it appears that over the last year, Rick Ross has just become the man. A big part of that to me is that he has Spiff TV with him all the time and they just shoot videos to everything. Visual content is what matters more than anything nowadays. You can't put on MTV Jams without seeing Rick Ross in a video.

“I put that on there also because of the fact that it introduced the whole new Maybach Music group roster. I thought it was the perfect time [when he released it.] He was exploding so he put out a mixtape and it pushed him over the hump. Not to mention I contributed a track to that mixtape.”

Clinton Sparks: “J. Cole's other mixtape The Warm Up got the word out [about him], but Friday Night Lights was easily a classic and Cole's best work yet. It had more self-produced stuff, some new artists. I'm definitely into multi-talented hard-working people [like J. Cole].”

Clinton Sparks: “Yeah his mixtapes are all pretty big. His most recent one is the best because he just gets better and better as he gets more experience and technology evolves. His mixes range anywhere from 500 to 1000 songs, clips, and sound effects, which he usually lists on his website for reference.

“Sometimes it's too much. Someone needs to be in the studio and tell this dude, 'You already have enough going on.' But the other times it works. The reason why I like it is because anyone who is able to make that many things happen and make it work is talented. I am a fan of that. Again, it doesn't always work, but it works a lot.”

Clinton Sparks: “Those are the two newest Big K.R.I.T. tapes. It's southern comfort music, all self-produced, all original dopeness. I'm a fan of self-proficient people who can do all that stuff.”